I feel like I understand the games combat well enough to play well, it's just that enemies are so beyond overtuned you need really good rng even with the right strategy, party members get one shot, or you need to use star knightess against anything remotely threatening unless you continually stall progress in favour of upgrades in order to stat-check enemies. Normal mode feels a bit easy, while hard just feels like luck.
The part that confuses me is that every time I've gotten low on willpower and used a trait to perform a pink scene, my willpower has almost full restored. More than a potion would counteract. I just tried and it restored 30, while the potion reduces WP by 20. Is this a hard mode thing or something?